


Desires

by julien (julie)



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-04-22
Updated: 2004-04-22
Packaged: 2019-03-18 00:45:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13670736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie/pseuds/julien
Summary: Lindsey finds himself siding with the good guys, and finally gets to act on his desires.





	Desires

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the final two episodes of the first season of "Angel".
> 
> First published: 22 April 2004 in my Homosapien 7 zine.

# Desires

_It’s our desires that make us human._

♦

There had been something between them, almost right from the beginning.

A spark, a recognition, a hunger. They both knew it, and they’d both dismissed it. But the moment had existed, and it coloured every moment thereafter. Coloured every moment dark.

For they were enemies.

♦

Lindsey McDonald of Wolfram & Hart walked into the reception area, such as it was, of Angel Investigations. All three of them were there: Angel, of course, the vampire with a soul; Wesley Wyndham–Pryce, the self–styled Rogue Demon Hunter; and the receptionist, such as she was, Cordelia Chase. Raised eyebrows all round, of course, but they were all too cool to really react.

Not that Lindsey could flatter himself into believing he appeared to be much of a threat … He announced his business. ‘I want out.’

That got more of a reaction. It wasn’t every day that a lawyer on the Wolfram & Hart fast–track decided to walk away. In fact, Lindsey couldn’t remember anyone leaving the firm – or being permitted to leave while alive or even while undead – in all the years he’d been there. Maybe that made him brave. He suspected it made him foolish to the point of insanity.

♦

‘You’d better stay here tonight.’

Lindsey attempted a dismissive laugh. ‘I told you – they’re not coming after me.’

‘Even so,’ Angel managed to insist without sounding like he actually cared a damn, ‘you being out there alone is a risk.’

‘I don’t need a baby–sitter.’

‘Hey, _you_ came to _me_ , remember?’ Harsher now. ‘We do this by my rules.’

‘Fine.’ Lindsey cast a surreptitious glance around while Angel had his back turned, pouring juice. There was only the one bed. A double bed, mattress high off the floor, with a dark wooden bedhead and a richly textured spread …

‘You can sleep on the sofa,’ Angel flatly announced.

It didn’t look nearly as inviting. Lindsey took the glass thrust at him, and sipped at the juice. Oddly enough, it was just what he wanted, though Angel hadn’t asked. In fact, given that Angel had been a vampire for a couple of hundred years, how did he even know? ‘You feeding me,’ Lindsey commented. ‘It’s kind of like a vegetarian knowing how to cook the perfect steak.’

Angel shrugged this off, and took a mouthful of juice direct from the bottle. But then he returned it to the fridge, and instead grabbed a polystyrene cup of blood – no doubt from the butcher who was known to provide animal blood to vampires, at a hefty fee. ‘I can drink liquids.’ He levelled a stare at Lindsey. ‘That’s not in my files?’

‘Don’t flatter yourself.’

‘There _are_ files.’ It was a statement, though Angel sounded the tiniest bit unsure of himself.

Lindsey shrugged, as cool as the vampire. ‘I have people to read files for me.’

An inelegant snort in reply.

‘Isn’t that why you let Wyndham–Pryce hang around? So he can read books for you?’

Angel almost smiled at that, though it wasn’t a pleasant expression. ‘Knew there was a reason,’ he muttered. And then he just walked away, leaving Lindsey loitering in the kitchen, wondering what the hell he was meant to do with himself.

♦

The evening was … interesting. Angel spent the time going through his entire arsenal – polishing swords, sharpening axes, cleaning guns, whittling stakes … All in a dour silence, and apparently Lindsey was expected to just sit there watching him. Well, it was more entertaining than an evening’s television, but Lindsey would normally – If he were at home, in his own apartment rather than in a vampire’s basement lair, Lindsey would be listening to Bach or Beethoven, with the designer mood lighting on and a glass of bourbon in his hand. This wasn’t quite as conducive to a good bout of musing.

Angel finished polishing a pair of … Lindsey had no idea what they were. Silver discs with a strange pattern stamped out of them, and cutting edges around one half but not the other. Not to be handled without due care, that much was clear. Once Angel was done with them, he packed everything away, and locked it up, except for a nasty knife which he slipped into the waistband of his jeans. He didn’t deign to glance at Lindsey, but Lindsey got the message.

Then Angel just turned out the main light, and walked through into the bedroom, leaving Lindsey sitting in the dark … ‘Yeah, sweet dreams,’ Lindsey muttered to himself.

Luckily there was a throw rug on the sofa, and a couple of large cushions that would do for pillows. And, to be honest, the sofa itself was sinfully comfortable.

Lindsey stripped down to his shirt and shorts, and settled himself for the night.

♦

Except that he couldn’t settle. And, even though there was nothing but repressive silence from the bedroom, from the bed, Lindsey would have bet his soul on the fact that Angel couldn’t settle, either.

Because there had almost always been something between them. A spark, a recognition, a hunger.

Lindsey got up off the sofa, and padded on bare feet across the room. As quietly as he could, for he didn’t want to startle his host. He peered into the bedroom, but could make nothing out. Except the bed was dishevelled. As if to belie the earlier silence, the bed was as mussed as if Angel had been tossing and turning for hours. Strange. Lindsey crept closer, trying to make out whether that was a white sheet or a pale flank stretched down the length of the –

– arms enfolded him from behind.

Arms secured him, and the blade of that nasty knife pressed against his throat.

‘What are you doing?’ Angel murmured in his ear.

‘What do you think I’m doing?’

‘The person holding the knife,’ Angel said in the most threateningly velvety tones, ‘is the one who asks the questions.’

‘But you already know the answer,’ Lindsey replied, very evenly.

There was a pause. Angel left a pause which in itself acknowledged that he knew as well as Lindsey did what Lindsey wanted right now. And after that pause, there was no point in pretending.

Nothing for a moment.

And then Angel tightened his arms – just enough so that Lindsey was forced back against him. Lindsey sighed, quickened, hardened. He could feel the cool, sculpted contours of the vampire body pressing against his own softer, warmer flesh. He was lost, and he knew it, and he didn’t even care. Perhaps this was all it came to – all his ambition, all his hunger – perhaps it all came down to this, and his life would end tonight, and no one would care or even notice.

He was being pushed towards the bed. Angel was walking towards the bed, holding him firm, not giving a damn if Lindsey overbalanced or not.

They were almost there. Angel stopped, let him go tilting, then grasped Lindsey’s shirt and hauled it off over his head. He was rough, but the shirt remained in one piece. Despite it being a three hundred dollar hand–stitched Italian import, Lindsey said, a little wistfully, ‘You could have torn it.’

Angel let it fall to the floor. ‘Please. Don’t flatter yourself.’

But Lindsey didn’t care because his Calvin Klein boxers were unceremoniously pushed midway down his thighs, and parts of him that had been held snug were now feathered by a whisper of night air – and he was suddenly facedown on the bed, brocade and linen and pillows all a mess beneath him. Angel wasn’t with him, but there was the promising sound of buttons being popped from their places, a rustle of cloth, and then the vampire was lying on top of him, moving, pressing Lindsey down into oblivion – Angel’s sweater and jeans rough against his bare skin – Angel’s cock hard and cold against his buttocks. Lindsey groaned, unable to move, unable to shift, unable to offer himself – but Angel knew – and Angel impaled him, filled him, bore down on him. There was one thing more, to make it perfect – and Lindsey could do something about that. He twisted his head a little, offering the juncture between shoulder and nape – and Angel knew, he _knew_ – and those fangs sank into his flesh as that hardness filled his darkness, and the end of the world rushed through him.

♦

The aftermath was … different. A tongue rasping the blood trickling down his throat. Delicious. The blood that the vampire had barely let himself taste. The wounds ached. His ass ached. Despite or maybe even because of the fact that he was still alive, Lindsey couldn’t have been happier.

♦

They lay there together, sprawled and tangled and uncomfortable and infernally satisfied. Angel somehow managed to convey that he wasn’t holding Lindsey, or embracing him, or anything like that – he just didn’t care enough one way or the other to move.

After a while, Lindsey ran one hand lazily up under the black sweater, loath to waste this opportunity. Angel lay there and stoically took the caress.

‘So, tell me,’ Lindsey murmured. ‘Did you and Doyle …?’

Angel rolled his eyes. ‘You don’t have much in those files, do you?’

‘Did you?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

Angel turned and gave Lindsey the driest look. ‘Because I liked him.’

Lindsey smiled, genuinely amused. ‘But you don’t like me.’

‘Your powers of observation are acute.’

‘So … there’s no danger of achieving a moment of perfect happiness with me, and thereby losing your soul to that gipsy curse.’

Angel remained completely dry.

‘Yes, there _are_ files,’ Lindsey reassured him. ‘Anyway,’ he added, ‘you should keep me around.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I won’t make you happy.’ Lindsey winked at him, feeling the most provocative grin across his face. ‘But we could have fun, nevertheless.’

A moment stretched. A long moment in which Angel gave him nothing. And then Angel turned away. Got up from the bed. Lindsey watched him go, already grieving.

But Angel paused, and stripped his sweater off. He let it fall to a chair. Kicked a careless toe at Lindsey’s expensive shirt. ‘Wearing white doesn’t make you one of the good guys, Lindsey.’

‘Wearing black doesn’t make you bad,’ he countered, smiling again. He added, ‘It _does_ make you look hot.’

‘ _Hardly_ why I wear it,’ Angel said. And it seemed he was cut enough to snip.

Lindsey grinned. Lay there happily uncooperative while a naked Angel wrestled Lindsey’s Calvin Kleins off him. Then they were lying together amidst the brocade and linen, and the vampire’s cool silken skin only made Lindsey’s feel more inflamed.

Angel was nuzzling at his neck. ‘ _Le petit mort_ ,’ Lindsey murmured.

‘Which kind?’ Angel muttered.

‘Every kind there is!’ Lindsey demanded.

And that’s what they did.

♦

Soon enough, though, Lindsey was back in the Wolfram & Hart offices. Reclaiming his career. His ambition. His hunger for … for the things of this world.

His boss, Holland Manners, summed up the situation, and asked, ‘Did I miss anything?’

‘No,’ Lindsey replied. _Except for the sex, of course._

‘If this is just a sex thing, Lindsey,’ Holland said, very smooth, very much across everything, ‘then get it out of your system. I understand. We all take a walk with the wild things, at your age.’

Lindsey just looked at Holland, as deadpan as he could force himself to be.

‘It’s a pity that nothing came of it. I suppose it isn’t the sex in itself that breaks the curse. Not this time, at least.’ _Not with this partner._

All right. He could no longer hold the deadpan expression. Lindsey just tried not to gape.

‘But we have another plan to test Angel’s mettle. An old friend of his. I think you’ll like her. Don’t feel you’ve failed us, Lindsey.’

‘No, sir,’ Lindsey managed. And, after an exchange of civilities, Holland Manners left the office. Leaving Lindsey to ponder. He was back at Wolfram & Hart, he knew that. He accepted that. He just found it a lot harder to swallow the idea that he’d never really left.

♦


End file.
